BlackBerry OS 10 Released for Developers
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RIM/Blackberry(ORLANDO, Fla.) — It hasn’t been an easy couple of months for RIM, makers of the BlackBerry. The Waterloo, Canada-based company has lost key board members as well as significant smartphone market share to Apple and Android phone makers. But on Tuesday the smartphone maker is announcing more details on the next version of its phones, which it hopes will help it regain momentum.
BlackBerry OS 10 is the next version of its operating system, and Tuesday the company released the software to developers and app makers at its BlackBerry World 2012 conference in Orlando.
“There is tremendous interest, anticipation and momentum building toward the launch of BlackBerry 10 devices, and today we’re extremely excited to release the BlackBerry 10 developer beta tools for general use,” Christopher Smith, RIM’s vice president for handheld application platform and tools, said in a statement.
RIM is giving those developers at the conference a BlackBerry 10 phone — called the Dev Alpha developer testing device – to use to develop apps for the new software. BlackBerry 10 is said to have a drastically different interface and design. It is built on different software code than previous versions of BlackBerry software.
“We’re making incredible progress on BlackBerry 10,” RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said in his keynote at the conference.
While consumers won’t be able to buy this phone, the device gives an idea of what future BlackBerry devices might look like. Straying from the traditional BlackBerry form factor, the phone doesn’t have a hardware keyboard, but instead a big 4.2-inch, 1280×768-resolution touch screen.
Heins also announced that the first BlackBerry 10 devices will be out later this year. He didn’t provide a concrete date, but it has been rumored for an October launch.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio